


Icarus Descending

by pipisafoat



Series: Icarus [1]
Category: In Plain Sight
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-29
Updated: 2011-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipisafoat/pseuds/pipisafoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Stan gave me this gun and this badge so I could fly, but he forgot to warn me not to fly too close to the sun. My wings have melted, and I've been in freefall for years now, Icarus descending an infinite distance to the sea below, and when I crashed, I had to get out of town to see the damage."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icarus Descending

"Hey Marshall, what would you do if I agreed to marry you?"

He freezes, feels his brain stutter like an engine out of gas, and blinks a couple times to refocus his gaze. "Wonder when I asked you," he manages a moment later, not looking away from his computer.

"I mean, if you did ask me, and then I agreed," Mary persists.

Marshall shrugs. "If I actually asked, and you agreed, I wouldn't be surprised."

"Why not?" Surprise in her voice, and he finally looks up.

"If I'm going to propose, I'm going to make damn sure yo-- the other person is going to say yes. Before I buy the ring. Before I cook some fancy romantic dinner for two. Before..." He shrugs.

"Before you bake the ring in a cupcake?" Did she take the cheap shot herself to minimize damage, or was that hint of laughter not ironic?

He rolls his eyes and answers seriously enough for either option. "I don't bake expensive jewelry into food. Too much risk of a broken tooth or swallowed bijoux."

She nods slowly. "But how do you go about knowing it's going to be a yes?"

"How do you..." Marshall gapes at her. "You talk to the other person! You have a conversation. More than one. You _ask her_ what she wants out of the relationship, where she sees the two of you going." He shakes his head, half-sadly, half to get away from the implications of that question. "What happened at the engagement dinner last night that has you asking?"

Her wince catches his eye, and she shrugs when he raises an eyebrow at her. "What makes you think something happened?" she asks a moment too late.

"Besides that flinch? Engagement parties tend to make people think about engagements." He shrugs and turns back to his computer screen, muttering to himself, "Even for the people who aren't invited."

"Marshall." Softly, almost an apology. Almost. He shakes it off and clicks the send button.

"Check your email. Supply request forms are due tomorrow. I think I got everything you need."

"Marshall." Harder, but still quiet.

"No, that's not why we have Eleanor. Do your own paperwork for once." He spins his chair to face away from her and rifles pointlessly through some files.

Mary sighs, and he hears the creak of her chair as she moves. "Goddamn it, Marshall, you're not making this any easier."

"Making what any easier?" he asks with a forced air of distraction.

Shoes on the floor _clip, clip_ , and before they step into his line of sight, he knows she's wearing higher heels than usual today, fancier shoes - shoes that tell everyone that sometimes, even Mary Shannon is a lady, and he feels his heart plummet. "I said yes to Raph," he hears through the sudden cotton in his ears, in his mouth, in his nose, and even as he registers the apology in her voice, he's standing up, pushing past her, almost running outside.

The metal of her ring on his arm makes him flinch away from her touch. "I wish the two of you happiness," he answers slowly, forcing each word through the marshmallow that is his brain, and he can almost feel her nod before hearing her shoes _clip clip I'm a lady today_ leave him alone outside.

* * *

  
Marshall is chosen to stand as the maid of honor, and Brandi is the best man, because no matter which side they place him on, he knows who he's there for. There are three weeks before the wedding when he pulls Raphael aside to suggest that the couple practice celibacy until the big day - an easy feat, just as soon as he thinks to appeal to the other man's faith and Mary's religion, expired though it may be. He's surprised when, the next day, Mary tells him how easily she agreed to it, but he doesn't mention his role in the idea.

He's not surprised when she shows up two days later on his doorstep, demanding sex or chocolate, **now**. A bar of Hershey's gives him time to mix up a batch of brownies, but as they're baking, she grabs two beers and the front of his shirt and turns on the TV.

"I found out whose idea this stupid celibacy was," she tells him. "It's the kind of trick you could pull off if you were the one marrying me, but it doesn't work so well for Raph."

He shrugs. "Well, I'm not the one marrying you, am I?"

"I don't know why not." She lets go of his clothing, slumps back into the couch, and chugs her entire beer before reaching for his. "You want to know why I said yes to him?"

Marshall lets her keep the beer and disappears to the kitchen for a minute. When he comes back, he has a close-to-empty bottle of vodka and one glass. "I'm not nearly drunk enough for this conversation," he says. "Watch the movie for a while and then tell me."

She starts talking before he's ready, though he suspects he wouldn't be ready until he was passed out. He picks at the label on the bottle, tries to see how slowly he can pour, alphabetizes the words on the label, and even pays attention to all the subliminal advertising in the Viagra commercial just to let her words wash over him, but she catches on eventually and calls him on it.

"Is it too much for me to ask that my only friend actually listens to me for ten minutes?"

He shrugs. "Maybe so," but the timer goes off before she can follow up on that, and she's easily distracted with brownies when he comes back. By the time she's ready to pick up the conversation again, it's all back to Raph.

"The whole point is that I don't even know why I said yes. Maybe it was that stupid goat, getting in my head, fucking with my thoughts. I don't know." She reaches out and turns Marshall by the chin until he's facing her. "I don't know why I ever said I'd marry him, but whatever the reason, I'm locked in. I've made that commitment, and I can't pull out now."

He laughs and pulls away from her. "That's ridiculous; people break off weddings all the time. You did it once."

"Annulled a marriage. After going through with it. Completely different from breaking off a wedding."

"Oh, yes! Much better to break the commitment of 'til death do us part' than to be honest about it before it comes to that. Much better to tie yourself down to a marriage that doesn't make you happy and, therefore, can't make anyone else happy than to break an engagement that you don't even know why you agreed to, in the first place." Marshall picks up the vodka again, glares at the bottle when its contents don't even fill his glass.

"Marriage makes Raph happy," she tells him, as though it answers anything he said.

"And it's definitely your job to make sure someone you barely like is happy."

She shrugs. "He's done a lot for me."

"Like?"

"Took care of Brandi's meth problem. Let her talk to him when I wasn't listening."

Marshall takes a brownie and waves it in her face. "All I'm hearing is 'He helped Brandi,' which means 'Brandi owes him.' Don't you think you've done enough for your sister? You don't need to pay off her debts, too."

"All that helping Brandi kind of saved my career, too, you know." She snatches the brownie out of his hand as he moves to make another point in her face. "God, you're annoying. Why can't I have a normal friend who says, 'Oh, Mary, your situation sure sucks, why don't we get drunk together?'"

He shrugs and hands her the empty bottle. "I'm kind of drunk, so it's entirely your fault we're not drunk together." She raises her second beer _Wasn't that mine at some point?_ and finishes it in one quick motion.

"And that's all the alcohol in your fridge," she announces. "Now whose fault is it?"

"Raph's, obviously. There's something wrong when your fiancée's getting drunk with someone else."

"That's what he gets for marrying me," she grouses, tipping her bottle again to get any last drops. "He gets drunk with Brandi, anyway."

Marshall laughs and drops his head against the back of the couch.

"What?"

He shrugs. "Brandi still got a thing for him?"

"Probably. They're going to have an affair before the year's out. Smart money's on the next two weeks."

"And you're okay with that?" He rolls his head over to look at her, surprised to find her in the same position, inches away from him.

"Seeing as how I'm planning on exactly the same thing, yeah, I'd say it doesn't bother me. He's just getting tested before I throw out the condoms."

 _Planning the exact same thing?_ fizzes through his brain, and right about the time he has the words figured out, she's shifted closer, kissing him, straddling his lap when he doesn't push her away.

"Mary..."

"Shut up and fuck me."

He grabs her by the hips and flips them, putting her on her back on the couch.

"You want to be on top?" she asks, surprised, but he pulls away and sits on the floor beside her.

"I'm not doing this," he answers. "I'm not drunk enough to--"

"So get drunk enough."

He puts a hand over her mouth, shudders when she licks his fingers. "There isn't enough alcohol in the world to make me sleep with you when you're in a relationship."

"Christ, Marshall," she says angrily, shoving his hand away, "it's not like I'm married."

"It's a commitment anyway - isn't that what you were just telling me?" He rubs his face with his hand, groaning when he feels her saliva. "I don't care if it's your promise. I'm not breaking it."

"Goddamn it, Marshall," she starts, but he gets up and walks away. "I'm not done with you!"

He stops in the door to his bedroom, leaning on the frame. "You're my best friend, Mer. Don't screw that up just because you don't want to be the cuckold."

* * *

  
He puts in for emergency leave time, putting 'family emergency' on all the paperwork, but when Stan pulls him aside, he's not surprised in the least. "I just need time to cool down," he explains. "I'll be back in a week. Plenty of time for the happy couple to fuss about exactly how I'll stand."

Stan looks at him for a minute before closing the blinds to his office. "Whatever fool thing Mary did to you last night, I probably don't want to know. Wherever you're actually planning to go, I also don't want to know, because I'm not a fan of lying to my employees. I just need to know if I need to be looking for a new Marshal or if you're planning to come back like nothing happened."

Marshall blinks and sits down with his head in his hands. "I'll be back," he mumbles to his palms. "I always come back. No matter what she does, I'm the only person who can handle her. I won't leave you with a loose cannon."

"Alright." Stan reaches out and pulls him into an awkward hug. "As long as you're taking care of yourself, too. Don't put her first so much that you're last."

* * *

  
Exactly fourteen times every day, the caller ID on his cell phone lets him know that Mary's calling. Exactly fourteen times every day, his phone beeps to let him know that he has a missed call. And exactly fourteen times every day, Marshall sighs and props his feet up on the porch railing to watch the call go to voicemail. Sometimes, he thinks about the debatably great idea to make sure he had a signal at his mountain cabin, but most of the time, he wonders how long it will take her to decide to track the number and come find him. He's surprised when five days go by without a sign of her, but on the sixth day, the caller ID says 'Stan' instead of 'Mary'.

"She's on her way," the older man says, and Marshall nods to himself. _About damn time._

"Thanks for the heads-up." He isn't sure why he doesn't hang up, but listening to his boss breathe is somehow comforting.

"Marshall..." Stan sighs. "I don't know what she's planning, but I don't want her to broadside you with this." He pauses, takes a few fortifying breaths. "The wedding's off."

"Oh."

Stan lets him sit for a few minutes, cowboy boots tapping a beat on each other on top of the railing. His eyes are focused morosely on the same thing they always land on after one of Mary's calls - a thin tree with a fork in it, dying even as it holds up the larger tree that's choking out its nutrients. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah," he says. "Thanks for the warning. I guess I'll probably be back in town tomorrow."

"For what it's worth..." Stan trails off, clearly waiting for something.

"Yeah?" Marshall prompts. _Just say it, already._

"I mean... she's not your only friend here. Detective Dershowitz called looking for you this morning."

Boots thud on the ground as Marshall sits up. "Nothing going on?"

"No, everything's fine. Your witnesses are fine, everybody's accounted for. Apparently you missed karaoke night with the boys from the station."

Oh. Marshall laughs at himself and relaxes back in the chair. "Right. I guess I'll have to make it up to them when I get back." A noise from the road grabs his attention, and when he turns his head, he's surprised to see his partner walking towards him. "Gotta go, Stan."

"Goddamn Probe bit it on the way up," Mary grouses as she makes her way to the porch. "Hope you don't need to leave anytime soon. It's blocking the whole damn road."

"I don't know why you thought it would make it up a mountain," he answers, meeting her halfway and taking the bag off her shoulder. "It has enough trouble getting around town."

She shrugs. "Tell me you have dinner cooking."

"Not yet, but there's chips if you're starving." He drops the bag at the door and takes his seat again. "Bring me a Coke."

She settles in the rocking chair beside him with a beer and Doritos, and for a few minutes, the only sounds are her crunching and a woodpecker drilling. Marshall closes his eyes, boots propped on the railing again, and let his mind wander into a combination of childhood memories and domestic fantasies.

"I've been thinking about what you said." The words jerk him back to the present, and he opens his eyes to see Mary studying his face. "I'm not getting married."

"Mmhmm." She frowns.

"Who told you the wedding was off?"

Marshall shrugs. "Stan. When he called to tell me you were on the way up here."

"You took Stan's calls, but not mine?" She glares at him, and he lets a half-smile play on his lips.

"He only called once." She rolled her eyes, and he turned back to the trees. "He wasn't the reason I left, either."

"And I was."

"Yes, I left because of you, but it's not completely your fault."

"Yeah? Then you should probably explain, because right now, I feel like I should be telling you 'Sorry for the attempted rape.'"

He shrugs again. "If it would make you feel better, go ahead, but it doesn't make a bit of difference to me. Just the ocean I'm falling into - sure, it's better than hitting the rocks, but not by much."

"The ocean you're falling into?"

"Stan gave me this gun and this badge so I could fly, but he forgot to warn me not to fly too close to the sun. My wings have melted, and I've been in freefall for years now, Icarus descending an infinite distance to the sea below, and when I crashed, I had to get out of town to see the damage." Watching the woodpecker fly away, he feels her eyes settle on him again.

"You flew too close to the sun? Maybe you should start making sense."

"I ... flew too close to you," he explains. "For someone who didn't want a partner, you let me hang around a lot, and I ... got too close."

Mary nods slowly, drains her Coke. "So I'm both the sun and the ocean?"

He shrugs. "Not the best metaphor I've ever had."

"You got too close."

"You don't want to hear about that."

"If you're talking about your crush on me--"

"Mer." He turns to face her. "I don't have a crush on you. I'm not mindlessly infatuated with my hot partner. I'm in love with my best friend, and I'm used to how it feels by now. No reason for anything to change."

"And loving me is like freefall with no idea what's at the bottom or when you'll hit ground."

He nods. "Something like that." He sighs and stands up. "I'll start dinner."

Her hand shoots out and grabs his sleeve. "You're not running away from this conversation, Marshall."

"No, I'm making dinner."

She pulls him back into his seat. "You were right about me. Or Raph. Whoever you were talking about, you were right. It was a damn stupid reason to get engaged. And no matter what Raph and Brandi were or weren't going to do, I shouldn't have ... especially shouldn't have tried to force you into it."

Marshall sighs and puts his feet back on the railing. "Yeah."

"And you probably don't want anything to do with me outside of work right now, but you should know anyway that the other reason I agreed to the wedding was..." She sighed and mirrored his position, taking her hand off his sleeve. "I'm just tired of this. I was going to move in with him."

"Out of your house, away from your family."

She nods once, slowly. "Yeah. But it's not like I'd be leaving them on their own."

"Raph agreed to paying _two_ mortgages?" He shakes his head. _Definitely likes Brandi more than he should a sister-in-law._ "Damn. I'd love to be the family he married into. Only ... didn't he retire? How exactly were you going to afford that?"

Mary shrugs. "Good question. I wouldn't have my head above water as it is without you. Mister anonymous donor. Good thing the FBI never looked into that"

"And how do you know about that?" He stares at her. "And they did. I explained."

"God, Marshall. You're my only friend. There's not a line of people waiting to take care of my bills, you know."

He huffs a laugh. "Right." The rhythm he taps out now is the same one from before, and he's strangely gratified when Mary's fingers join the beat.

"I didn't know what to say," she finally tells him, quietly. "I thought maybe..."

"Oh, Jesus, Mer. You can't sleep with someone out of gratitude and expect it to work out right. Especially when he's in love with you."

"Yeah." She picks at some dirt under her nails and sighs. "I know. What now?"

Marshall looks at the trees for a minute before answering. "Dinner. We'll figure this out later." He stands up, pulls her up and into his arms. "Yes, we're still friends. Yes, I still love you. Maybe now that I'm not waiting for you to get your head out of the dirt..."

"My head's still pretty firmly up my ass, though," she interrupts. "Give me time to work that out, and maybe then we'll talk."

 _Maybe then we'll talk. Maybe then we'll talk._ He smiles as the words echo in his head and rubs her back gently. _Icarus flying high, wings of heat-resistant rubber, reveling in the heat from the sun._


End file.
